Medical and Surgical Charity Volunteers

Change your life – become a medical mission charity volunteer

Does the idea of volunteering for overseas medical charities excite you? Maybe it is something that has always been in the back of your mind and you hoped that one day you would find the time to volunteer? Maybe volunteering for surgical missions is something you have only recently considered, due to your own changing circumstances?

Whichever path has led you to us, we welcome you with open arms, because we need experienced surgical and medical charity volunteers for many overseas projects. It goes without saying that as a healthcare practitioner, your experience and dedication is a quality that is highly valued within our organisation - your service will be vital to improving the lives of countless deserving individuals in many developing countries.

How can you help patients in developing countries?

Volunteers on medical missions use their skills, knowledge and compassion to ease the pain of people in developing countries who have no, or only limited, access to healthcare providers. Many of these people have life threatening conditions or permanent and disfiguring disabilities requiring surgical intervention, which is usually unavailable to them in their own country.

Some people spend their lives in pain, some suffer the continual embarrassment of disfigurements and others have their lives cut short – all because they cannot access the type of healthcare that we take for granted in Australia. This is the type of healthcare that you have been trained to give and the kind of healthcare that heals both the giver and the receiver.

Imagine spending years knowing that there is nothing you can do to help your child’s blindness. Or watching your loved one’s pain and disability increase daily, from burns that were never treated properly. What if you had suffered for years from a uterine prolapse or incontinence because of a lack of obstetric healthcare during childbirth?

These are just some of the many disabling and heart wrenching conditions that can be so easily cured if someone puts up their hand and says – I will do it, I will help you.

Know that by volunteering your skills and your time, you have an amazing opportunity to dramatically impact people’s lives. Not only will you help to improve someone’s physical condition, but in many ways you will help to restore their sense of dignity and self-worth.

Medical charity volunteers are worth their weight in gold, but unfortunately, we cannot help every person in need, but with your help and your commitment we can make it easier for so many more people to live a life free of pain and give them back their self-respect and a hope for the future.

How can you benefit from this experience?

As an experienced healthcare practitioner, volunteering for medical charity work will not only broaden your horizons, but it will give you a real sense of accomplishment. This is a completely different experience compared to working in the poorer communities of your home country.

A certain level of healthcare is essential everywhere, the problem is that in developing countries most people have either no access or limited access to a system that is understaffed and poorly resourced. That is why your help is so vital to the health of patients who would otherwise continue to live in pain, to suffer from disfigurements or to even die, simply due to a lack of medical and surgical interventions.

Volunteers for medical charities help people from impoverished regions to regain their self-esteem, their health and their hope for a brighter future. When you realise that it is only your presence and the work of your team that can alleviate other people’s suffering, you develop an entirely different perspective on life. You will come away with a deeper understanding of humanity and of your place in the world.

Some of you might be surprised to learn that even with all of your experience, it is quite likely that you will still be faced with new challenges that will test you, but which will also sharpen and hone your skills.

The challenges that you may face working in developing countries will not only add to your store of knowledge, but will also help to increase your problem solving skills and give you an enlightened perspective on your place in the world.

On your return to your home country, your knowledge-base and your new experiences will give you a much broader and more global perspective on your own life and how best you can contribute to the welfare of yourself and others. It is also important to note that as a volunteer for surgical charities, you will gain far more recognition and respect from your peers and the hierarchy at work, than previous.

The benefits to yourself of being a surgical charity volunteer cannot be underestimated, in fact your resume will be much more grounded and you may find career options opening up to you that you had previously felt were outside of your reach.

So if you are interested in becoming a medical mission charity volunteer and you are involved in one or more of the following specialities, we will be happy to hear from you:

Eye Surgery Volunteers

Ophthalmology Volunteers

Cardiac Volunteers

Cardiothoracic Volunteers

Burns Surgery Volunteers

Women's Health Volunteers

Gynaecology Volunteers

Obstetrician Volunteers

Intensive Care Nurses Volunteers

ICU Nurses Volunteers

ICU Doctor Volunteers

Paediatric Doctor Volunteers

Paediatric Nurse Volunteers

Anaesthetic Nurse Volunteers

Anaesthetist Volunteers

Perfusion Volunteers

Intensive Care Doctor Volunteers

Medical Mission Volunteers

Volunteer for Open Heart International

Our Volunteer Guide gives you an understanding of our organisation, the work we do, and what to expect as a volunteer.